Optical Correction X-Ray
Blow a single letter up huge and probe its joints to see where a real type designer breaks geometry to look perfect.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 83%
Beginners (especially engineers) make type mathematically regular, which reads as subtly wrong because the eye perceives weight, not measurement. Expert typographers deliberately break the grid — thinning strokes where they join — so letters look perfectly regular even though they aren't. Hische's exercise trains you to see these corrections, giving you 'x-ray vision' into whether type was made by an expert.
Origin
Jessica Hische's teaching exercise, drawn from her config talk and professional practice on optical correction in type design.
Core principles
- 01The eye perceives optical weight, not mathematical measurement
- 02Where strokes join, ink accumulates and must be subtracted to avoid a dark blob
- 03You create something mathematically perfect, then make it imperfect so it's perceived as perfect
- 04Corrections are heavier and more necessary in heavier weights and in lowercase (smaller) letters
- 05Rules exist and are followed — but broken often, to correct for optical tricks
How to run it
- 1
Blow up a letter
In Figma or any tool, type a lowercase letter and scale it so a single letter fills the page. Lowercase is best because its smaller size forces more weight accommodation.
Pro tip Use letters with joints — a two-story a, an n, an r — where strokes combine.
- 2
Probe the joints with a test shape
Draw vertical lines, or place a small circle at a joint and at a spot where the stroke stands alone, and compare. In a geometric sans that looks rigid, the stroke thins where the bowl eats into it.
Pro tip The top of an r or the shoulder of an n is often narrower than the bottom to subtract joint weight.
- 3
Read the correction as an expertise signal
Once you can see the corrections, you start spotting where they happen and can tell whether type was made by a true expert or a fresh hobbyist who left everything mathematically regular.
Pro tip Engineers who take up type design leave everything perfectly grid-aligned — that regularity is the tell of a beginner.
Watch out Perfectly geometric type that ignores optical correction reads as subtly off, even if the maker followed the 'rules.'
In the wild
Hische explains that in a two-story lowercase a, the bowl actually eats into the vertical stroke to erase weight that would otherwise be perceived optically where the strokes meet — so the letter looks regular precisely because it was made irregular.
→ You learn to see the deliberate imperfection that produces perceived perfection.
Common mistakes
Making type mathematically regular
Drawing a grid where every line aligns perfectly produces type that reads as amateur and subtly wrong, because it ignores how the eye weighs ink at joints.
Is it for you?
Best for
Engineers, PMs, and hobbyists getting into type design who want to see why their letterforms look 'off'
Not ideal for
Non-designers who just need to pick or brief a logo and don't need to draw letterforms
From the transcript
“you're absolutely following rules, but you're breaking those rules quite often to correct for optical tricks”
“the bowl actually eats into that stroke a little bit to erase a little bit of that added weight that would have been perceived optically”
“you end up like creating something that's perfect and then have to make it not perfect in order to make it be perceived as perfect”
“I can always just look at something and see whether someone is truly an expert at typography or whether this is like a fun hobby…”
From the episode
How to see like a designer: The hidden power of typography and logos
Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Author)